


The Comfortable Glow

by clutzycricket



Series: Taste of Nectar [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Family Fluff, Inspired by Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:02:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1495900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa had started playing music because it made her feel like the world made sense. That's never really changed- she still uses music to help her, but how she goes about it has changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Comfortable Glow

1.) Mother

The Old Piano at Winterfell was a gorgeous thing, a Victorian Monstrosity as Uncle Benjen called it, brass and elaborately carved wood for a Stark gatekeeper’s Tyrell bride over a century ago. Mother played it every Christmas Eve, all of the children creating a wild chorus Papa said would drive away any dark spirits. (Arya always beamed at that, proud and deliberately making herself sound  _worse_.)

When Sansa had tried to play it yet again on her seventh birthday, Mother had asked Grandfather Tully for her girlhood piano out of Riverrun. It was powder blue and had pale circles that Mother said were from Auntie Lysa and Uncle Edmure. They had to tune it, and Mother patiently explained how to make sure it worked. 

Sansa listened to it all with wide eyes, and wrote down everything she could remember in her diary each night, where no one could tease her. 

She wanted to get it  _right_. Music was something that made sense when she heard it, having order and a way it was supposed to go.

So she practiced whenever she could, sneaking into the old bedroom the piano had been placed into and trying to get it perfect. Robb had to wake her up when she fell asleep playing one night, and no one could find her. 

And she was terrified that she wouldn’t be allowed to play, but then Arya found out the trick to the locks and got herself locked in the attic, so it was all forgotten.

But eventually she learned to play it without Mother’s gentle corrections or her hands guiding Sansa. 

She still wasn’t allowed to play on the Old Piano, but that was fine, because that was Mother’s job.

2.) Rhaenys

Jon was her cousin, and he was awfully like Father, quiet and patient, even with Arya. So Sansa didn’t mind him coming over, because he helped her with maths, and didn’t mind listening to her practice.

And it meant that Rhaenys and Renly came to Winterfell, and they were  _fun_. Renly laughed and brought her piano music from Storm’s End or Dragonstone and didn’t mind her cooking attempts. Rhaenys was older and beautiful and she played music and couldn’t do math either. She wasn’t Mother, but she was nice.

And sometimes Rhaenys played her guitar, the one Renly said she got to annoy Mr. Targaryen. And she taught Sansa songs. Some of them were sad songs, but some of them were fun. 

But Rhaenys was older, and one day she came by with a bag in grey and blue, with a pink ribbon. 

"Hey, Sansa," she said, her pretty curly hair chopped off and barely hitting her shoulders. "You know I’m going to university tomorrow, right?"

Sansa nodded, heart sinking.

"Hey, little nightingale, I’m not dying," she laughed and used Renly’s nickname for Sansa. "Edinburgh isn’t too far away, and I’ll be back in Sunspear for the holidays. Maybe you can come visit- though try and talk my brothers out of sneaking up? Dad’ll be furious." She held out the bag. "And can you keep an eye on these for me? Dany likes trying to use them, but she’s not as careful as you are, and she spends more time in Valyria, anyway."

There were four CDs in there, ones that Rhaenys had used when teaching her folk songs. The songs were all different when sung by different people, and Sansa thought it was confusing but  _interesting_.

So Sansa promised and carefully learned to play “Tam Lin” for when Rhaenys came back. She’d always liked that song.

3.) Ned Dayne

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, fourteen-year-old Sansa thought ruefully. Jeyne and Elia had agreed with it, and even Arya seemed to think Sansa could do it. 

But there were people. Watching her. 

"I can do this, I can do this," she told herself. 

"Stark?" Ned sounded as nervous as she was. Which wasn’t fair, because everyone liked Ned without him needing to work at it at all. Sansa  _worked_  to get people to like her. Arya didn’t seem to think she did, but Arya was also younger and didn’t catch Sansa’s little panic attack like things.

Well, Elia made friends with her when Sansa did something without thinking, so aside from Elia she had to work at it. 

"Opening night isn’t meant to go well, right?" she asked in an embarrassingly high voice.

"Sansa," he grinned. "You know this all backwards and forwards. You could probably sing  _my_  part.”

Sansa shot him a look. “How did I get this part, anyway? Christine Daae is a _huge_  role for a new performer…”

"Mum thought you were perfect," Elia said, having been drafted into helping move scenery around. "Also, the Tyrell show-off graduated, I don’t sing, and the Frey girls are kind of uninterested. Elinor is an alto…" She held for a moment before patting Sansa’s shoulder. "Plus, she knows you’d be willing to do all the work. She remembered your lessons with Rhae, my creepy perfectionist."

"Plus you do have creepy stalker problems," Trys said, adjusting his mask. "Not your fault, but you do. So you’re kind of perfect at it."

"I should have stuck to the piano," Sansa muttered. 

4.) Sweetrobin

Aunt Lysa was a horrible, horrible person, Sansa decided. And Robin was a beastly little boy. Her little brothers had all been  _much_  better behaved.

"It’s stupid," Robin said for the fourth time. Sansa was about to give up on trying to find something her cousin liked to do. 

Sansa, with all the patience granted her by having younger siblings and Robb, did not sigh. “Do you want to see a trick?” Two more days, two more days… Mother would probably stop by soon to make sure Sansa was okay, and Mother was about the only non-Aunt Lysa person that Robin listened to.

He looked at her suspiciously. “What kind of a trick?”

"Do you know  _Jaws_?”

She showed him how to play on the little keyboard that was floating about his room, fingers pressing the keys in an menacing manner. She worked some of the variations she and Arya had come up with, for different guests. 

He was delighted, and demanded Sansa play more. She showed him the basic tricks, and promised to talk to his mother about perhaps taking lessons. It would be something that would be good for him, Sansa thought.

Well, maybe this babysitting thing wasn’t too bad.

+1.) Willas Tyrell

She wasn’t… skittish, around Willas, really.

(Except for the bit where she was.)

But they’d only known each other in the isolation and strangeness of Brightwater Keep’s ruins, and she was getting to see Willas around other people.

So Sansa retreated to the piano, making something neat and orderly in her world.

And someone was humming. She stopped playing and turned around, blushing furiously. 

It was Willas, eyes half closed and smiling in a light-hearted manner she still only rarely saw.

"That was pretty," he said after a moment. "What is it called?"

"The Light," Sansa said. "It came out when you were… away."

"Could you teach me the lyrics?" he asked, hand on her shoulder.

"I’ll sing it through, first, so you hear how it should go?" she offered, feeling a bit more at ease, He nodded, and she started.

"In the morning it comes, Heaven sent a hurricane…" she sang, the song delicate and pretty and somewhere between rueful and hopeful.

Perhaps, she admitted, a bit like their relationship.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Sansa plays is "The Light" by Sara Bareilles, and the title comes from her "Breathe Again".  
> (Also, yay, more perfectionist!Sansa, who is 7, 9, 14, 16, and 22, in each section.)


End file.
